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small_giftsTitle: Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Author: Woldy
For: rose71
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: social class differences
Summary: Four winters in Remus' life, told backwards.
Warnings: swearing, Muggle politics.
Notes: At the end there's a slightly spoilery explanation of the historical context & slang for those unacquainted with the political history of the UK. With thanks to my betas, to Billy Bragg for the title (well, the song), and to trade unionists who not only brought us the weekend but have taught me a lot over the years. Er, I might have gone overboard with the prompt *looks sheepish*.
December 1984
In future years these clashes might be romanticised, viewed as epochal or symbolic, but it doesn't feel that way as the pre-dawn drizzle soaks through Remus' cheap jumper. The men beside him grumble and curse, rubbing their hands together or fingering the rocks and bricks they've brought as missiles.
Remus is here for the cause, yes, but it's not as though he can get steady work anyway. Nobody would do this for fun, but it's where the fight is and he can't think of anywhere better to be. He fits in amongst these people who've run out of luck.
Remus remembers this feeling from the first war: how one's horizon shrunk to surviving day to day, the way that grinding exhaustion hollowed out people's cheeks and made them bitter. Regardless of the familiarity he is a long way from Dumbledore now, standing in a huddle outside a pit in Yorkshire.
It's bloody cold and he's hungry. None of the people around him have been paid in months, so they’re lucky to get two meals a day and often as not those are provided by the communal kitchen in the labour hall. The miners' wives can stretch potatoes and cheap meat further than middle class suburbanites would believe possible.
"Here come the bastards," someone mutters, and Remus looks up to see the approaching headlights. Inside the bus are the scabs, the handful of selfish, desperate people who the police protect by beating and starving everyone else.
He takes a deep preparatory breath and clenches his fists around the stones – not a wand, not this time. The vehicles speed closer, the rocks start flying and then Remus is engulfed by noise, violence and sudden, blinding lights.
December 1980
On Christmas morning Remus wakes up in St Mungos. Even before opening his eyes, he knows from the familiar smell of bleach and the uncomfortable mattress that he is in hospital. Of course, the crushing pain in his ribs is another hint.
Remus thinks he's alone until Peter appears, pale and worried, at the bedside.
"You're awake. I, um. How d'you feel?"
"Alive," Remus says slowly.
Neither of his companions from last night had emerged alive. He remembers seeing the killing curse hit Gideon, and Fabian's furious pursuit of its caster before he was lost from Remus' sight in the melee. By the time Remus saw him again, Fabian was dead.
For a moment Remus was paralysed with shock, then several curses flew at him and he leapt away from the green light. He was trying to find a defensive position or an escape route when a curse hit him from behind; the last thing he recalled was the sensation of falling.
"Dumbledore sends his best wishes. He said he'll come later, but he's with their family at the moment."
Christ. He can't imagine how it must feel to learn that both your brothers are dead. How Molly must feel now, hearing that news on Christmas morning amidst her crowd of young children.
"I'm sorry," says Remus helplessly, "I did everything that I could."
"Nobody blames you," Peter replies, but he doesn't meet Remus' eyes.
"Where are the others?" Remus asks, and regrets it when Peter goes even paler.
"James and Lily are still in hiding, they didn't want to risk anything. Sirius…"
There is a long pause.
"He didn't want to come," Peter says eventually.
It shouldn't really be a surprise. Things have been terrible between himself and Sirius for months, but he always thought that Sirius would come if Remus truly needed him. Now he knows better.
"James and Lil sent presents," Peter says hurriedly, as if trying to fill the silence. "I've put them at the end of the bed with the one from me. I need to got to go in a sec 'cos I promised mum, but…"
Peter shoots another, almost pitying, glance at Remus. "I'll come back later," he says, "and, er, happy Christmas."
Remus closes his eyes, focusing on breathing in, then out. He hears the door click shut as Peter leaves and then lets the maelstrom of emotions wash over him, feeling tears trickle down his cheek.
"Yeah," Remus says to the empty room, "happy fucking Christmas."
December 1978
The first thing Remus sees when he comes down to breakfast is the Daily Prophet: "Muggle Strikes Continue: Trains and Ambulances Cancelled". He ignores it. For one thing, it's pretty obvious what's happening if you care to look and for another the Prophet's coverage of Muggle events is lousy.
If he wanted to read about Muggle politics he'd buy The Guardian, but today he doesn't want to read about it. What he wants is some coffee and toast, then several more hours of sleep.
Remus is finishing his toast when Sirius appears in the kitchen and turns the radio on full volume, which is not welcome at all, though Remus is prepared to sulk about it instead of complaining.
"Macmillan denies the crisis … inflation … public sector wage demands … ongoing labour action is disrupting …"
"Fuckers," Sirius says, switching the radio off again. "They should all stop whining and get back to work. Can't be that badly off."
"What was that, Sirius?" Remus asks, his voice deceptively calm.
"Well, it's rubbish, isn't it? Troublemakers stirring up class warfare, Andromeda says. Thatcher will sort them out."
It is the tone as much as the words which angers Remus, the haughtiness of Sirius' pronouncement based solely on the opinions of the family Black.
"You've no idea what you're talking about," Remus snaps. "Have you even heard yourself? 'Troublemakers'? What the hell was -"
"A laugh! Jokes and pranks," says Sirius, affronted.
"It's not a joke for these people. Not everyone was raised in the Ancient and Most Noble -"
"Who fucking disowned me, so don't go bringing that up," Sirius ripostes, his voice rising to a shout. "And I never shut down any bloody power stations, or delayed people's funerals, or closed the hospitals, did I? This could be affecting people we know, people from school, in the midst of Death Eater attacks."
"Did you ever wonder for a moment if people have reasons for what's happening? Job losses and food costs-"
"Then the Muggles should look for jobs instead of setting up these stupid flying crickets everywhere!"
"You can't even say it!" Remus yells. "You're so ignorant that – I can't deal with this; I'm too tired."
Remus wheels around, grabs a handful of Floo powder and has thrown it into the fire before Sirius has time to reply. He sees Sirius' face, flushed and angry, as he whirls away.
"He's a bloody idiot!" Remus announces as he stumbles out of the floo, and James looks up calmly from his newspaper.
"Morning. More trouble in paradise?"
It's mid December so the Potters' living room is strewn with tinsel and a tree stands in the corner, decorated with red and gold vaguely snitch-like baubles. There is a log fire blazing in the hearth and one of them has thrown orange peel onto it, causing the smell of woodsmoke and citrus to permeate the house. This is homely in a way that neither Remus' mother's home – empty and echoing since his father died – nor the flat Remus shares with Sirius manages to be, and Remus is briefly, fiercely jealous.
"Hullo Remus," Lily says, drying her hands on her apron as she walks into the room. "No need to ask who you're talking about."
"He's being stupid about the strikes, on top of everything. I was patrolling last night and he knows when I came to bed so I wish he'd –" Remus stops abruptly as Lily and James exchange a significant look. "Sorry," he says, "I'll – I shouldn't interrupt your weekend."
"That's what friends are for," says James good-naturedly.
"Sit down and I'll make some tea," says Lily.
This isn't the first time Remus and Lily have commiserated over the frustrations caused by Sirius Black, James Potter, or both of them. These conflicts are probably inevitable when ordinary kids have arrogant, aristocratic friends, and there were no shortage of these arguments at Hogwarts.
Usually Lily had been shouting because James and Sirius had picked on Snape for any number of unfair and insignificant things: his overlong robes, his greasy hair, his nose, his social awkwardness … Of course Lily grew up in a decaying mill-town, so her sense of injustice was an ingrained as the Northern vowels.
"Who do they think they are?" Lily raged as she paced up and down. "Strutting around bullying everybody! I'm minded to put them both in detention."
"No, I'll talk to them about it," Remus would say to placate her, but his remonstrations never had much effect.
Eventually James figured out that Lily was repulsed by his cocky sense of entitlement and he was less of an idiot after that. He still didn't really understand that some people couldn't afford heating in the winter, or piles of Christmas presents, or cream on the pudding, but he was trying. The fact that James made an effort, if only for love of his wife, was a big improvement on Sirius' attitude.
"Sorry," Remus says again, wrapping his fingers around the mug of tea and savouring the warmth.
"You've done it for me often enough. Have you eaten?"
"Yeah," replies Remus, yawning widely. "These damned missions. We never seem to find anything much, but Moody had us wandering 'round Knockturn Alley until four."
"Better than if you do find something," Lily says grimly.
The unspoken reference is to last month, when Benjy and Dorcas spent a week in St Mungos after a nasty fight with the Death Eaters. For a few hours they'd been uncertain whether Benjy would survive, and this proof that the war had begun in earnest was making everyone nervous. The Order isn't big enough to sustain many casualties, let alone deaths, so Dumbledore is being careful about their assignments – "strategic" Moody says, glass eye whirling disconcertingly.
"Look, James will talk to Sirius," Lily says, leaning forward sympathetically. "Why don't you get some sleep upstairs and then things will probably look better."
"Right," says Remus, staring into the mug.
He knows that Lily is trying to help, but the subtext is all too plain: we want you guys to stop fighting; we don't want your arguments to contaminate our friendships. The problem is he can't see how the fighting can be avoided. It's not that Remus minds Sirius being richer than him, but he's annoyed by Sirius' failure to appreciate this fact, his insensitivity to it.
Once these niggling difficulties emerge then they're omnipresent: he can see it in the generous dollops of washing up liquid that Sirius uses, the flashy fuel-guzzling motorbike, the cut and cloth of his robes. Money seems to be something the rich take for granted, like water or oxygen or the way someone comes to empty your bins. Except they haven't been doing that recently because the binmen are on strike.
It's an argument about more than money because other issues are all tangled up: loyalty and family, trust and betrayal. Remus knows that a lot of people think that the spy – if one exists, and it's increasingly believed that one does – is Sirius, who of course has the family connections.
No matter how secretive Sirius is about things Remus still doesn't believe that he's a traitor, not even when he catches Sirius reading a letter from Regulus, but he can't rationally dismiss the possibility. For now Remus simply stores this knowledge, potent and poisonous. Sirius' elitism and his thoughtless dismissal of the strikers do not help his case.
So, James will tell Sirius that he's being an idiot, Sirius will apologise to Remus without really meaning it and they'll be back at the beginning, although there comes a point when the end of one argument is barely distinct from the start of the next.
"Yeah," Remus says, standing up. "Sleep might help. Thanks, Lil."
He doesn't know if he'll be able to sleep, but lying down somewhere warm, quiet and unquestionably safe will have to be good enough.
December 1977
It's the night before the Christmas holidays, so the common room is full of people drinking butterbeer and exchanging gifts in brightly patterned paper. It's always a good party and within a few hours music will be echoing through the tower.
Remus isn't in the common room yet; none of them are, though James and Peter are making a horribly unsubtle effort to leave Remus and Sirius in the dorm together. It's kind of embarrassing, especially because they enjoyed some personal time in the dormitory that very morning courtesy of a silencing charm and clandestine bed-hopping. Not that Peter and James need to know that.
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," James says cheekily as he heads for the door.
"You might do it with Lily," Sirius says with a grin, throwing himself lazily onto Remus' bed.
"I don't want to know what anyone is doing in this room," Peter says firmly, following James out of the door and closing it behind him.
This is apparently one of the few times that Sirius doesn't want sex because he makes no effort to move closer. Instead he wriggles a bit and produces a small, crumpled package from one pocket.
"Merry Christmas," he says, "open it."
"It's not Christmas yet."
"You don't believe in Christmas and you told us it's mostly based on some pagan festival," Sirius replies, all of which is true. "So if the tradition is arbitrary, then it doesn't matter. Open it."
Remus pulls aside the wrapping – Sirius has done a terrible job, just a mess of paper and a sticking charm – to see a tiny blue glass bottle. It looks a little like an antique perfume flask and rather like something which would contain a Djinn in the Arabian Nights.
Hesitantly, Remus lifts the stopper and sees golden glinting liquid within. A fat droplet leaps from the surface, rising above the top of the bottle and then falling back with a soft plop.
"I can't accept this," Remus says, replacing the stopper.
The unspoken list of acceptable presents includes books, Zonkos products, Quidditch stuff, booze, chocolate, and records now that they all have access to a record player. It plainly does not contain restricted potions.
"You can," Sirius insists, "I want you to have it. I wouldn't trust James or Pete with it and obviously nobody'd trust me, but you've got good judgement."
"I daren't, Sirius. Not with…"
Not with the war coming. None of them say it, as if the name would make the war real or summon it to them.
"Do it for me. I've had more luck in my life than I deserve already and you've never had much, so it just evens things out. You might need it in case we can't be with you for the moon, of if the fighting gets …"
Sirius pauses, holding the bottle tantalizingly above Remus' palm. The liquid shimmers when the candlelight catches the blue glass, iridescent as a peacock feather. The bottle might be small, but it holds enough Felix Felicis for perhaps a dozen sips.
"I want to make up for my mistakes," Sirius murmurs. "I want you to be safe," and Remus' resolve crumbles. Isn't that what anybody would give to those they love if it were within their power?
"All right," he says, hand already reaching up, "yes."
Years later, Remus will realise that this was the moment he started to resent Sirius. He can't help but resent anyone who doesn't need to ration their luck and face the consequences of those choices.
If one could trace back through history – a futile venture because a single thread can't be untangled from the pattern, but supposing it could – then Remus' miraculous survivals and the suspicion they caused, the disintegration of his relationship with Sirius, the deaths of James and Lily, and his decade of loneliness could all be traced to this.
This is when it started.
Notes: The events of December 1978 are part of what is called the 'Winter of Discontent' when dissatisfaction about spiralling inflation and low wage increases led to widespread strikes, after which the Labour government lost the 1979 general election.
The events of December 1984 are part of the Miner's Strike when Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government eventually defeated the trade union movement and begun decades of neoliberal policies.
'Scabs' is a slang term for people who work while their coworkers are on strike (i.e. in defiance of the strike or in the attempt to undermine it) making them very unpopular.
The phrase 'flying pickets' is mangled by Sirius. This refers to strikers picketing outside a workplace other than their own in an attempt to close down that location and involve other workers in the strike. Now illegal in the UK and many other jurisdictions.
Author: Woldy
For: rose71
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: social class differences
Summary: Four winters in Remus' life, told backwards.
Warnings: swearing, Muggle politics.
Notes: At the end there's a slightly spoilery explanation of the historical context & slang for those unacquainted with the political history of the UK. With thanks to my betas, to Billy Bragg for the title (well, the song), and to trade unionists who not only brought us the weekend but have taught me a lot over the years. Er, I might have gone overboard with the prompt *looks sheepish*.
December 1984
In future years these clashes might be romanticised, viewed as epochal or symbolic, but it doesn't feel that way as the pre-dawn drizzle soaks through Remus' cheap jumper. The men beside him grumble and curse, rubbing their hands together or fingering the rocks and bricks they've brought as missiles.
Remus is here for the cause, yes, but it's not as though he can get steady work anyway. Nobody would do this for fun, but it's where the fight is and he can't think of anywhere better to be. He fits in amongst these people who've run out of luck.
Remus remembers this feeling from the first war: how one's horizon shrunk to surviving day to day, the way that grinding exhaustion hollowed out people's cheeks and made them bitter. Regardless of the familiarity he is a long way from Dumbledore now, standing in a huddle outside a pit in Yorkshire.
It's bloody cold and he's hungry. None of the people around him have been paid in months, so they’re lucky to get two meals a day and often as not those are provided by the communal kitchen in the labour hall. The miners' wives can stretch potatoes and cheap meat further than middle class suburbanites would believe possible.
"Here come the bastards," someone mutters, and Remus looks up to see the approaching headlights. Inside the bus are the scabs, the handful of selfish, desperate people who the police protect by beating and starving everyone else.
He takes a deep preparatory breath and clenches his fists around the stones – not a wand, not this time. The vehicles speed closer, the rocks start flying and then Remus is engulfed by noise, violence and sudden, blinding lights.
December 1980
On Christmas morning Remus wakes up in St Mungos. Even before opening his eyes, he knows from the familiar smell of bleach and the uncomfortable mattress that he is in hospital. Of course, the crushing pain in his ribs is another hint.
Remus thinks he's alone until Peter appears, pale and worried, at the bedside.
"You're awake. I, um. How d'you feel?"
"Alive," Remus says slowly.
Neither of his companions from last night had emerged alive. He remembers seeing the killing curse hit Gideon, and Fabian's furious pursuit of its caster before he was lost from Remus' sight in the melee. By the time Remus saw him again, Fabian was dead.
For a moment Remus was paralysed with shock, then several curses flew at him and he leapt away from the green light. He was trying to find a defensive position or an escape route when a curse hit him from behind; the last thing he recalled was the sensation of falling.
"Dumbledore sends his best wishes. He said he'll come later, but he's with their family at the moment."
Christ. He can't imagine how it must feel to learn that both your brothers are dead. How Molly must feel now, hearing that news on Christmas morning amidst her crowd of young children.
"I'm sorry," says Remus helplessly, "I did everything that I could."
"Nobody blames you," Peter replies, but he doesn't meet Remus' eyes.
"Where are the others?" Remus asks, and regrets it when Peter goes even paler.
"James and Lily are still in hiding, they didn't want to risk anything. Sirius…"
There is a long pause.
"He didn't want to come," Peter says eventually.
It shouldn't really be a surprise. Things have been terrible between himself and Sirius for months, but he always thought that Sirius would come if Remus truly needed him. Now he knows better.
"James and Lil sent presents," Peter says hurriedly, as if trying to fill the silence. "I've put them at the end of the bed with the one from me. I need to got to go in a sec 'cos I promised mum, but…"
Peter shoots another, almost pitying, glance at Remus. "I'll come back later," he says, "and, er, happy Christmas."
Remus closes his eyes, focusing on breathing in, then out. He hears the door click shut as Peter leaves and then lets the maelstrom of emotions wash over him, feeling tears trickle down his cheek.
"Yeah," Remus says to the empty room, "happy fucking Christmas."
December 1978
The first thing Remus sees when he comes down to breakfast is the Daily Prophet: "Muggle Strikes Continue: Trains and Ambulances Cancelled". He ignores it. For one thing, it's pretty obvious what's happening if you care to look and for another the Prophet's coverage of Muggle events is lousy.
If he wanted to read about Muggle politics he'd buy The Guardian, but today he doesn't want to read about it. What he wants is some coffee and toast, then several more hours of sleep.
Remus is finishing his toast when Sirius appears in the kitchen and turns the radio on full volume, which is not welcome at all, though Remus is prepared to sulk about it instead of complaining.
"Macmillan denies the crisis … inflation … public sector wage demands … ongoing labour action is disrupting …"
"Fuckers," Sirius says, switching the radio off again. "They should all stop whining and get back to work. Can't be that badly off."
"What was that, Sirius?" Remus asks, his voice deceptively calm.
"Well, it's rubbish, isn't it? Troublemakers stirring up class warfare, Andromeda says. Thatcher will sort them out."
It is the tone as much as the words which angers Remus, the haughtiness of Sirius' pronouncement based solely on the opinions of the family Black.
"You've no idea what you're talking about," Remus snaps. "Have you even heard yourself? 'Troublemakers'? What the hell was -"
"A laugh! Jokes and pranks," says Sirius, affronted.
"It's not a joke for these people. Not everyone was raised in the Ancient and Most Noble -"
"Who fucking disowned me, so don't go bringing that up," Sirius ripostes, his voice rising to a shout. "And I never shut down any bloody power stations, or delayed people's funerals, or closed the hospitals, did I? This could be affecting people we know, people from school, in the midst of Death Eater attacks."
"Did you ever wonder for a moment if people have reasons for what's happening? Job losses and food costs-"
"Then the Muggles should look for jobs instead of setting up these stupid flying crickets everywhere!"
"You can't even say it!" Remus yells. "You're so ignorant that – I can't deal with this; I'm too tired."
Remus wheels around, grabs a handful of Floo powder and has thrown it into the fire before Sirius has time to reply. He sees Sirius' face, flushed and angry, as he whirls away.
"He's a bloody idiot!" Remus announces as he stumbles out of the floo, and James looks up calmly from his newspaper.
"Morning. More trouble in paradise?"
It's mid December so the Potters' living room is strewn with tinsel and a tree stands in the corner, decorated with red and gold vaguely snitch-like baubles. There is a log fire blazing in the hearth and one of them has thrown orange peel onto it, causing the smell of woodsmoke and citrus to permeate the house. This is homely in a way that neither Remus' mother's home – empty and echoing since his father died – nor the flat Remus shares with Sirius manages to be, and Remus is briefly, fiercely jealous.
"Hullo Remus," Lily says, drying her hands on her apron as she walks into the room. "No need to ask who you're talking about."
"He's being stupid about the strikes, on top of everything. I was patrolling last night and he knows when I came to bed so I wish he'd –" Remus stops abruptly as Lily and James exchange a significant look. "Sorry," he says, "I'll – I shouldn't interrupt your weekend."
"That's what friends are for," says James good-naturedly.
"Sit down and I'll make some tea," says Lily.
This isn't the first time Remus and Lily have commiserated over the frustrations caused by Sirius Black, James Potter, or both of them. These conflicts are probably inevitable when ordinary kids have arrogant, aristocratic friends, and there were no shortage of these arguments at Hogwarts.
Usually Lily had been shouting because James and Sirius had picked on Snape for any number of unfair and insignificant things: his overlong robes, his greasy hair, his nose, his social awkwardness … Of course Lily grew up in a decaying mill-town, so her sense of injustice was an ingrained as the Northern vowels.
"Who do they think they are?" Lily raged as she paced up and down. "Strutting around bullying everybody! I'm minded to put them both in detention."
"No, I'll talk to them about it," Remus would say to placate her, but his remonstrations never had much effect.
Eventually James figured out that Lily was repulsed by his cocky sense of entitlement and he was less of an idiot after that. He still didn't really understand that some people couldn't afford heating in the winter, or piles of Christmas presents, or cream on the pudding, but he was trying. The fact that James made an effort, if only for love of his wife, was a big improvement on Sirius' attitude.
"Sorry," Remus says again, wrapping his fingers around the mug of tea and savouring the warmth.
"You've done it for me often enough. Have you eaten?"
"Yeah," replies Remus, yawning widely. "These damned missions. We never seem to find anything much, but Moody had us wandering 'round Knockturn Alley until four."
"Better than if you do find something," Lily says grimly.
The unspoken reference is to last month, when Benjy and Dorcas spent a week in St Mungos after a nasty fight with the Death Eaters. For a few hours they'd been uncertain whether Benjy would survive, and this proof that the war had begun in earnest was making everyone nervous. The Order isn't big enough to sustain many casualties, let alone deaths, so Dumbledore is being careful about their assignments – "strategic" Moody says, glass eye whirling disconcertingly.
"Look, James will talk to Sirius," Lily says, leaning forward sympathetically. "Why don't you get some sleep upstairs and then things will probably look better."
"Right," says Remus, staring into the mug.
He knows that Lily is trying to help, but the subtext is all too plain: we want you guys to stop fighting; we don't want your arguments to contaminate our friendships. The problem is he can't see how the fighting can be avoided. It's not that Remus minds Sirius being richer than him, but he's annoyed by Sirius' failure to appreciate this fact, his insensitivity to it.
Once these niggling difficulties emerge then they're omnipresent: he can see it in the generous dollops of washing up liquid that Sirius uses, the flashy fuel-guzzling motorbike, the cut and cloth of his robes. Money seems to be something the rich take for granted, like water or oxygen or the way someone comes to empty your bins. Except they haven't been doing that recently because the binmen are on strike.
It's an argument about more than money because other issues are all tangled up: loyalty and family, trust and betrayal. Remus knows that a lot of people think that the spy – if one exists, and it's increasingly believed that one does – is Sirius, who of course has the family connections.
No matter how secretive Sirius is about things Remus still doesn't believe that he's a traitor, not even when he catches Sirius reading a letter from Regulus, but he can't rationally dismiss the possibility. For now Remus simply stores this knowledge, potent and poisonous. Sirius' elitism and his thoughtless dismissal of the strikers do not help his case.
So, James will tell Sirius that he's being an idiot, Sirius will apologise to Remus without really meaning it and they'll be back at the beginning, although there comes a point when the end of one argument is barely distinct from the start of the next.
"Yeah," Remus says, standing up. "Sleep might help. Thanks, Lil."
He doesn't know if he'll be able to sleep, but lying down somewhere warm, quiet and unquestionably safe will have to be good enough.
December 1977
It's the night before the Christmas holidays, so the common room is full of people drinking butterbeer and exchanging gifts in brightly patterned paper. It's always a good party and within a few hours music will be echoing through the tower.
Remus isn't in the common room yet; none of them are, though James and Peter are making a horribly unsubtle effort to leave Remus and Sirius in the dorm together. It's kind of embarrassing, especially because they enjoyed some personal time in the dormitory that very morning courtesy of a silencing charm and clandestine bed-hopping. Not that Peter and James need to know that.
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," James says cheekily as he heads for the door.
"You might do it with Lily," Sirius says with a grin, throwing himself lazily onto Remus' bed.
"I don't want to know what anyone is doing in this room," Peter says firmly, following James out of the door and closing it behind him.
This is apparently one of the few times that Sirius doesn't want sex because he makes no effort to move closer. Instead he wriggles a bit and produces a small, crumpled package from one pocket.
"Merry Christmas," he says, "open it."
"It's not Christmas yet."
"You don't believe in Christmas and you told us it's mostly based on some pagan festival," Sirius replies, all of which is true. "So if the tradition is arbitrary, then it doesn't matter. Open it."
Remus pulls aside the wrapping – Sirius has done a terrible job, just a mess of paper and a sticking charm – to see a tiny blue glass bottle. It looks a little like an antique perfume flask and rather like something which would contain a Djinn in the Arabian Nights.
Hesitantly, Remus lifts the stopper and sees golden glinting liquid within. A fat droplet leaps from the surface, rising above the top of the bottle and then falling back with a soft plop.
"I can't accept this," Remus says, replacing the stopper.
The unspoken list of acceptable presents includes books, Zonkos products, Quidditch stuff, booze, chocolate, and records now that they all have access to a record player. It plainly does not contain restricted potions.
"You can," Sirius insists, "I want you to have it. I wouldn't trust James or Pete with it and obviously nobody'd trust me, but you've got good judgement."
"I daren't, Sirius. Not with…"
Not with the war coming. None of them say it, as if the name would make the war real or summon it to them.
"Do it for me. I've had more luck in my life than I deserve already and you've never had much, so it just evens things out. You might need it in case we can't be with you for the moon, of if the fighting gets …"
Sirius pauses, holding the bottle tantalizingly above Remus' palm. The liquid shimmers when the candlelight catches the blue glass, iridescent as a peacock feather. The bottle might be small, but it holds enough Felix Felicis for perhaps a dozen sips.
"I want to make up for my mistakes," Sirius murmurs. "I want you to be safe," and Remus' resolve crumbles. Isn't that what anybody would give to those they love if it were within their power?
"All right," he says, hand already reaching up, "yes."
Years later, Remus will realise that this was the moment he started to resent Sirius. He can't help but resent anyone who doesn't need to ration their luck and face the consequences of those choices.
If one could trace back through history – a futile venture because a single thread can't be untangled from the pattern, but supposing it could – then Remus' miraculous survivals and the suspicion they caused, the disintegration of his relationship with Sirius, the deaths of James and Lily, and his decade of loneliness could all be traced to this.
This is when it started.
Notes: The events of December 1978 are part of what is called the 'Winter of Discontent' when dissatisfaction about spiralling inflation and low wage increases led to widespread strikes, after which the Labour government lost the 1979 general election.
The events of December 1984 are part of the Miner's Strike when Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government eventually defeated the trade union movement and begun decades of neoliberal policies.
'Scabs' is a slang term for people who work while their coworkers are on strike (i.e. in defiance of the strike or in the attempt to undermine it) making them very unpopular.
The phrase 'flying pickets' is mangled by Sirius. This refers to strikers picketing outside a workplace other than their own in an attempt to close down that location and involve other workers in the strike. Now illegal in the UK and many other jurisdictions.
